The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [9]
Seated by the window with their books piled ready, to pass the time Annabella sketched a bust of Hannah. They were waiting for Mademoiselle Leclair, their French tutor, who hardly seemed a mademoiselle. She was a dumpy spinster from somewhere in Picardy with a pale extensive face that ran mostly downhill from a long, white nose.The girls were too old for this tuition, but continued on improving themselves as they prepared for marriage. Mademoiselle Leclair knew that the classes were a genteel diversion and her manner was kind and encouraging, always patient with the girls’ bêtises. Hannah often felt ashamed when she noticed her thick shoulders or the sour warmth of her breath as she read.
Not that Hannah Allen was entirely pleased with her own appearance. On the whole, she passed: she was slender, fair-haired; her bosom was decent. Smaller than her sister Dora’s, it was also lighter, less motherly. Her pallor, however, was just the far side of attractive. Of course, it was from her Scottish ancestry and that gave it welcome, even enviable associations of Byron and Scott, but the whiteness of her face made her lips look a little bloody. Also her teeth, which were really a perfectly normal colour, looked yellowish in contrast. Her eyelashes were blond. Her eyebrows looked like summer wheat.
Hannah felt a tingling at Annabella’s scrutiny, the flicker of her gaze over her as she drew. She watched Annabella’s dark eyes lift from the page and meet her own, then realised their gazes hadn’t quite met: Annabella stared impersonally at some portion of Hannah’s face. Annabella was herself unequivocally beautiful, really exquisite, and to a degree that made Hannah puzzle over precisely what it comprised, what made someone beautiful. Beauty was so fugitive and variable in so many people and among her father’s patients she’d seen many an example of it extinguished, distorted or reversed, but there in Annabella it sat and stayed all day. She was always beautiful. Her complexion was lovely, with just the right susceptibility to blushes. Her eyes were large and dark. her lips were full, particularly the lower one, and they were always like that without any arrangement or pouting on Annabella’s part. If Hannah had been a man, she was sure that she would have wanted to kiss her. It was her neck that decisively elevated her up out of the realm of normal good looks. It was long, slender, and curved gracefully up from her shoulders. Fine curls of her dark hair, escaping from its pins, rested on her nape. The sight of them made Hannah feel tender towards Annabella, as though she were a child, but also sensual. If she’d been anything other than negligent of her appearance, almost oblivious to it, she would have been unbearable. As it was, her great power of beauty was only ever noticeable in her effect on other people, never in her. She was Hannah’s true and best friend, and had been since they were little girls, since the Allens had moved to Epping. Annabella lived in a calm, small house in the forest not far from Hannah’s own. Her father was a magistrate, a respectable man to whom Matthew Allen had paid his respects on arriving. Discovering the pretty, demure child of Hannah’s age, he’d encouraged them together and since then they’d gone on growing upwards, twining together. Hannah had already confided in Annabella the news of Mr Alfred Tennyson’s arrival.
‘Have you seen him again?’ she asked.
‘He’s been to the house, to see my father, but I missed him.’
‘Shame.’ Annabella smiled. ‘Tell me what he’s like again.’
Hannah laughed. ‘Like a poet, I think.’
‘What, little and plump like that Mr Clare?’
‘No,’ Hannah responded vehemently. ‘No. Anyway, Mr Clare was a peasant poet, and Alfred Tennyson,’ Hannah loved unfurling the long banner of his name, ‘isn’t that. I mean to say that he’s pensive, brooding you might say. Tall.’
‘How tall is he?’
‘Tall. Six feet or more.’
‘And handsome?’
‘Annabella.’
‘Well, is he?’
‘Yes, he is. Dark.